


You'll Kill Me Before the Cigarettes Do

by oneifby (orphan_account)



Category: True Detective
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, F/M, Original Character Death(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-25 01:43:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2603975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/oneifby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're young when they meet, fall in love, suck the lifeblood out of each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You'll Kill Me Before the Cigarettes Do

He’s beautiful in a way that it hurts to look at him sometimes. Like maybe he’s rubbed enough dirt around himself to mask the blinding ball of light to other people, other people who focus on the dirt and the blood and shy away. It’s for their own good. But looking at him can be like looking at the sun, leaving little specks of white and purple around the edges of your vision. 

You see him every day, walking the same path, and your eyes follow him because they _can’t not_. You’ve never seen someone look more alive, but it’s an aliveness built out of shadows pulled from the darkest corners of hell, and one day you realize that he’s seeing you too. You stand on a corner and watch him go, feeling his eyes on you, going through you, and suddenly you realize he can really see you. In a way that you’re not even sure you’ve ever seen yourself.

Eventually you figure out that he's heading to that crappy, rundown bar that the locals wouldn’t go to even if there weren't _other_ bars and definitely no one from your college would be caught dead in. Same time. Every day. So one day, you go in before he'll be there, you time it out. You get some looks, but your fake is good and you’ve been wearing enough eyeliner and lipstick to flirt your way into bars since you were 16. They don't really care anyway, as long as you're buying. And when you hear the door open, you don't turn around. You take a long sip from your beer and don't look up.

He sits down next to you without saying a word.

_Usual?_ the bartender asks. He grunts and the bartender gets it for him before disappearing into the back. Or maybe he’s still there, but you’ve got blinders on. You’ll never know. You sit there for five minutes in silence before either of you move, but you watch each other out of the corners of your eyes. You can feel his gaze on you, and _god_ , it feels like pins and needles traveling up and down your whole body.

_Have you ever been in love_ he asks suddenly, taking a sip.

It takes you a minute. The sound of his voice is sandpaper, waves crashing. It has to reform into a sentence, then a question, before you can answer. _Chemicals_ you say. _Chemicals and circumstance_. You clear your throat. _I've been in lust_.

He turns to look, straight on, for the first time. You meet his eyes and you know that you made your choice a long, long time ago.

_I won't go easy_ he warns, still in the same tense voice. You have to shake yourself awake, remember that you’re in a bar and not a bedroom. _I’ve been lost. A long time. And just finding my way back cost me more in bloodprice than most people pay the Reaper._

_Have I asked you to_ you say. _As long as both our eyes are open._

_Blind men don't speak_ he says. _At least in any way that makes sense to the deaf._

_Fuck me_ you think.

_I'll give you whatever's in my power_ he thinks.

_Rust_ he says. You laugh.

It’s not easy with Rust (no one would ever even use ‘easy’ and ‘Rustin’ in the same sentence) but it’s a different kind of hard, a jittery, painful energy that seeps beneath your skin and that you have to stomp down again and again so it doesn’t overwhelm you and cause every molecule in your body to separate from each other in what you imagine the Big Bang felt like to that speck of nothingness that was ‘before’. Rust offers downers, heroin, whatever he can get his hands on to quiet the self, but you refuse. It’s liberating and challenging all at once, and you see pride in his eyes when all you take is a beer, even if he’ll never say what he’s feeling. 

You know he has a job, he’s a cop or something, which makes you lauuuugh the first time you hear it, rolling around on the mattress that is his one ‘luxury’ in the broke-down, dirt-scoured apartment until you run out of air, and he stands in the kitchen, waiting for silence. He doesn’t smile, but he’s amused. You know by now to recognize a quirk in the eyebrow or a tic in the cheek. Yes he agrees when you’re done. _The blind imprisoning the fucking blind_ you say, pulling off your threadbare t-shirt. _I didn’t know they let pure evil on the police force._ He finishes shooting up and lies down next to you. _You should meet my partner_ he says. _He wouldn’t understand a word you say, but he would love to watch you talk._

It’s like how you imagine the electric chair to feel, voltage turned down but not by much. For the first few weeks your heart hammers so hard in your chest every time you’re in the same room you worry for the finite number of beats you have left, that every person carries within them, ticking down. He hides _nothing_ , even if you might wish that he would; you watch him shoot death into his veins and he tells you he has killed, more than once, though he doesn’t say specifically how many, and you know it to be true. Sadly, softly, it doesn’t change the fact that you feel sick, physically, viscerally sick away from him, doesn’t keep you from grinding your teeth on the nights you sleep in your own bed, frame and all. You saw a cartoon once that said something like ‘He said, ‘I like the way your organs slosh around inside of you’ and you probably should have called the police, instead of being flattered beyond belief’ and you know, you suddenly know what it meant. From both sides. He’s impossible in all the senses of the word and prone to thirty minute speeches about the corruptible, flawed nature of man but you know without wondering that he would gladly lay his body down on the train tracks for you. Your only worry is that he’ll jump on the train before that. 

One Saturday, you wake before him and draw yourself a bath in the coppery tub, sinking into the hot water and feeling it sting the places on your body where the skin is raw and new and broken. You’re washing your hair when he pushes open the door. You’ve both dispensed with any modesty.

_Morning_ you say. He grunts back, not unkindly, as he turns on the faucet in the sink, waiting for the water to run hot. _Is there coffee?_ You rinse the shampoo, dipping your head back until your ears are just beneath the level and listen for him very carefully.

_I put it on. Give it a minute to come down_ he says, distorted through the water. You raise your head back up, letting the water run down through your limp hair and down your back, so you can watch him as he splashes water against his face. He wipes his face on his cotton t-shirt, turns, and pulls himself onto the bathroom counter, putting his bare feet against the edge of the tub. You comb the conditioner through the strands with your fingers, taking the hairs that come out and laying them in straight lines on the side next to you.

_Smokes?_ he asks.

_Some in the medicine cabinet._ You submerge your head again, washing the residue out. Eyes closed, underwater, and if you’re there for maybe a moment too long, Rust won’t say anything. When you resurface, he’s lit a cigarette and takes a long drag, and you feel his eyes burning a scar down the length of your body, underwater and obscured by the soap scum on the surface. You click your tongue, drawing his eyes up, and meet his gaze. 

_Why are you here?_ he asks roughly.

_What?_

_Instead of hangin’ around with college boys. Smart boys, your own age. This ain’t the way you girls are supposed to live_ he says, blowing out smoke out over your nakedness.

You cough. _I don’t like college boys._

_You’re a fucking baaaby. What about your folks? They know you fuckin’ a junkie cop?_ He’s like a dog with a bone now, pushing an angle. When he’s got a point to make he won’t stop till he’s made it or you’re bawling on the floor or both. You pull your knees to your chest and hold them there. Just like him, to start an argument when you’re naked.

_No. They couldn’t give a shit about me, though._

He snorts. _You people always think your parents don’t care about you._

_You don’t know what you’re talking about_ you say, lowering your arms to find a more comfortable position.

Rust smiles, mockingly, takes another drag. _I bet you were daddy’s little girl. You were the baby, weren’t you. No, no, the middle child. The one who wasn’t smart in the way her parents wanted her to be or good enough at anything to be proud of. You tried to rebel from your middle class upbringing by challenging your teachers, maybe staying out a bit too late past the curfew. You had a beer or two and liked it, maybe a lot, but you liked what it let you do with the boys in your class even more, the boys you used when they thought they were using you because you wanted to punish your parents for giving you everything. I’m a punishment for them too, probably, even if they never know I exist, even if I’m just a thought you have around the dinner table that lets you summon the self-control to pass the mashed potatoes._ He taps the ash of his cigarette into your bathwater as he cocks his head. Small pockets of steam rise.

You shake your head slowly. He pretends to not be paying attention, but his eyes are intense, focused on your collarbone. _You think you’re a wasp, darting in to strike, to kill. You just don’t realize you’re hitting concrete, Wasp. Try again._

A smile creeps onto his face, a little one. _Or_ he says slowly, meeting your eyes now _or you grew up screaming against people who couldn’t hear you whisper, throwing yourself against walls that were padded and marked ‘For Your Protection’ until your lungs were sore with the effort and you fell into what they asked of you and you gave into their ransom demands until you stood before them with empty hands and tear stained cheeks, begging to be set free. Nothing left for them to take, huh._

He slides off the counter and bends over the tub, grabbing your face firmly with his free hand. _Oh, girl. If I’m a wasp you’re my stinger. You’re the killin’ blow, little un. You’re gonna kill me, someday._ He tilts your face back still by the chin and bends over the stagnant water to kiss you and you open your mouth to his lips, heavy with smoke and staleness and when his tongue meets the center of your bottom lip you know you’re praying for his salvation.

He releases you, pinches the skin beneath the top of your arm, grinds the cigarette out on the tile. _Gotta drive down to the bayou today. Be good, Sting._ Then he’s gone and you shiver alone in the suddenly cold tub with a throbbing arm and a deep, more painful longing.

You fuck against the cabinet, the refrigerator. You tell him you’re taking a quarter off school and he throws a bowl against the wall, beer and cereal dripping down the wall. Fuck you, he cries, his accent getting thick. _Youfuckingasshole the fuck you are. You need a’way out. You need to have th’way to be better than them at their own game yur not gonna end up heah, yur gonna ruin them, drown ‘em in their own hypocrisy ‘nd impotent anger. So no, you’re not leavin’. Or you can’t come back heah._ You are shocked but not upset, hurt while understanding. You go to class, jiggle your legs up and down until you can sprint back to the apartment, even when he’s at work, even when he’s not there, because you can’t write any more without sitting against the wall of the apartment, the spot you’ve carved out for yourself. One time you make dinner and eat it all before he gets back and he loves you for it, picks scraps out of the sink, the can. _You’ll get sick doing that,_ you say, watching him. _Ojalá,_ he says.

Sometimes he comes in at three am, so drunk he can’t get his keys in the door, so drunk that he lets you hold him while the two of you sleep. Sometimes he doesn’t come at all. Occasionally you wake up to the sound of screaming, on nights you don’t even remember him getting into bed with you, and you hold him so tightly his chest can’t move to take in enough air to scream anymore. One night, he wakes and you can see that whatever _they’ve_ done to him has left him empty and hollowed out and you lie there for hours as he holds your face and stares into your eyes and you realize that if you break the connection he might actually never wake up. He’s paralyzed and being operated on by surgeons who can’t hear him scream. _It’s calcified within me._ he says in the morning. _Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva. I know._ you say because without knowing the words, you know what he’s saying. _Yes. You are. But not permanently. Not your forever._

One night you give up on him coming home and lay your head down on the one pillow you share, breathing in his scent like it’s the only oxygen left on earth, but the door falls open at four. You pretend to be asleep--not because you don’t want to see him but because you want him to come to you and wake you, to need you. You hear him kick off his boots and a shiver runs down your spine but you try to hold yourself perfectly still, to hold on to the illusion for just a few more seconds. Eyes still closed, you _feel_ more than hear his body coming as he hits the mattress. Your back is to him as he shoves your arm to shake you awake.

_Sting_ , he says, pinching your thigh, and his breath is heavy and ragged as it drawls the word. You roll over to face him and there’s an explosion in your stomach and you know it was worth the pretending, just to have kept yourself from seeing his face for a few more seconds. 

_Mhh._ You try to sound sleepy but you might as well be lying to the ocean, or something else as true and immutable, for all he believes you. His eyes are wild as he searches your face. Making sure you want him before he’s biting your neck and sucking at your skin and all that matters is that he never lets go of your face again. He has to make sure. He never really believes you when you tell him.

But he rolls off you: _condom._

_Don’t_ you say without thinking because you don’t think straight when his hands aren’t on your body. He’s stood and made it halfway across the room by then but he freezes at the words.

_No_. He’s back in the bed and on top of you again before you know what’s happening and he’s grabbing your jaw firmly, shaking you a little. _Never say that to me again. We don’t know what’s rotting inside me from that scum I have to deal with and you’re too fucking smart for me to drag you down do you under_ stand _me?_ He doesn’t usually scare you anymore but in this moment you remember why he should. He’s straddling your chest, holding your face, and you can see that whatever kept him out till four in the morning got into his veins through a needle, maybe more than once, maybe professionally sanctioned. Or even ordered.

_Ok_ , you say. _I get it, I know. I’m sorry, Rust._

_Promise me. I need a fucking promise because I won’t let you let me kill you._

_I promise_. His eyes bore into you, through you, until he’s sure that you mean it. 

_Godfuckingdammit_ he breathes. _Ok. Now we can_ he says as he pushes himself off your body and you wince at the concentrated pressure on your ribs. He's standing again.

You fuck like you’re inhaling mustard gas: harsh, staggered breathing, tears pouring down your face. Rust isn’t gentle and you don’t want him to be, wouldn’t know what to do if he was. He grabs you by your thighs and lifts you up against the cabinet to get a better angle and leaves you with purple fingerprints on your skin that you press down against in class to calm yourself. Even when he’s down on you, he sinks his teeth into the meat of your thigh and it’s that which causes your back to arch and muscles to spasm. _God_ you cry. _No_ he whispers back, sucking against you.

__________________________________________________________________________ 

You don’t knock on the door of his apartment because you don’t care if he wants to let you in or not. You’re not even sure he cares either. You push the door open without checking the handle because he never locks his door. He has nothing to lose. 

He sits on the floor smoking, four beers into a six pack. Almost like he was waiting for you, prepping himself. Jeans. Sheer white ribbed tank top, one from a pack that you picked up at the drug store. He doesn’t look up when you come in and slam the door behind you. He knows who it is.

_I thought you weren’t coming back this time_ he says. _Isn't that what you said_.

_I wasn’t. I didn’t want to._

_I told you what I was the day you met me._

_And I told you I was only going to bend with you until you tried to break me_ you say.

_You can’t drink from a poisoned well without feeling death seep into your veins._

_Are you the poison?_ you ask as he leans his head back against the wall, and takes a long drag. He still hasn’t looked at you.

_No. I just died drinkin’ it. I’m the body rotting at the bottom of the well_. He stands now for the first time. _A cautionary tale that you will tell your children someday_. He’s lying. He’s the best kind of poison. Your favorite kind.

Suddenly you don’t want him to look at you because you don’t know what will happen if he does. You don’t want him to see the fear behind your eyes, you think. But you know it’s not fear he’ll see. It’s hunger, and you almost lick your lips just thinking the word.

_I thought you were at the bottom too_ he says. One step toward you and he drops the ash on the floor, stubbing it out.

_No, but... I’d follow you as far down as I could go_ you say. Two steps toward you. _Until I couldn’t breathe any more_.

_I never asked to take you further than that. So why are you back?_ Even if you couldn’t see, you’d be able sense his body in front of you now. So close you can feel his heat, smell the mix of cigarettes and beer and sweat and something else, something that reminds you of the time your father took you into the woods to skin a deer and you let the hot blood run over your hands and prayed that there was someone who could absolve you of the guilt you felt for your pleasure.

But you’re not looking for absolution anymore, if you ever really wanted it. The misstep that you took in hiding behind your father has been erased by the passing of time and repetition, as it so often does, and life has given you a generous, blissful second chance: you are a woman and you are going to look him in the eye because he’s only human.

You look up and immediately remember you were wrong. He was never just a man. He is raw and wild and hungry like some sort of sickeningly sweet honey, seeping into your every pore. He’s broken but he was never meant to be human anyway, so can you call it breaking? Or is it just his natural state? He does not need you. He’d be perfectly happy imploding, failing at living. But you need him. You need him now because he knows and you know that you were each other’s before you met him and that otherwise you will explode in daycare and grocery shopping and saying “I love you” to someone who believes you mean it.

You stare. To anyone else, it would be defiant but at Rust, it’s the secret password. _Yes_ you think. _Look at me, even though you hate it, especially because you hate it. See what I know you have sensed since the moment I opened this door and you felt my body burning, and since you saw the kindling in the bar. Because you lit the fire and now you’ve got to feed it or the extinguishing will_ kill _me_. It’s not love, you know. Love is less than this.

He drops his cigarette without even seeming to open his hand. His eyes never leave yours as he stomps it out and you hate yourself for jumping a little when he reaches up and grabs your hair, long enough that he can twist it around his hand in a knot. He pulls you closer with his other hand, pulls your hair so your face is close to his and now you can feel his breath on your skin and it’s like you’ve been breathing something other than air and now you’re tasting oxygen.

His eyes fight yours. Breathing heavy. Mouth open. _Is this what you want_ his eyes question. _Are you sure?_

He’s giving you an out he knows you won’t take. It’s all you have ever wanted. It is all you can ever want again. You jerk your head to pull your hair even tighter, give you that slight increase in pain, but before you can finish his mouth is pressed against yours. Open and hard. You push back and realize somewhere in your stomach that he was just as hungry as you and he still tried to get you to leave and you can’t even imagine stepping back let alone kicking him out of the room and then you can’t help but moan. 

The moan is the trigger. He is raw, a fire burning across your body, hotter than any human should ever be. He slams you back against the wall, dropping his hand from your hair to pin you against the cold plaster, pressing against your ribs, while his other hand draws up your leg and searches.

His hands find nothing under your dress and he bites your lip hard in approval. You can taste blood and know that he can too and for a moment you suck together, fighting over the taste of you. He uses his hand to fumble for his pants. He breathes hard, hot on your face. You unbutton his jeans, push everything down. Then he’s inside you with no warning, holding you up with one hand while he grips your arm so tightly you can feel the blood inside you start to go weak and pool.

_Tell me what you feel_ he says, pushing into you.

_Now? Whole._

_You feel whole?_ he asks as his fingers look for blood to pool in your thigh, another place to mark you.

_I’m less than human. Or more than. But you, you've made me a new species._

_He slams your shoulders back against the wall and thrusts into you harder. You’re flat against the wall, not allowed to move, and every part of his body is pressed into you as he leans in to whisper._

_That’s not how life works. You don’t get to need me._

You push him off your chest now. Mad. You immediately regret it. Suddenly he’s not part of you anymore and you’re even hungrier than you were when you walked in the door. You’ve gotten a drop of water after crossing a desert and then he made a new desert for you, just for you. But he takes a step back anyway and suddenly there’s a live wire burning up the two feet between your bodies, a tie that jerks you forward. One of those dancers in the shows your mother taped on the VHS.

_And you don’t get to tell me what I need_ you say.

_Just know that you can’t count on me. I might be gone tomorrow. I might be gone already._ He draws his hand against his mouth like he’s trying to get the taste of you gone, spits on the ground.

_There’s a difference between needing and trusting_ you say and you’re both breathing hard standing like you’re waiting to see who will pull a gun first and you realize that even that wouldn’t surprise you. Or warn you away. _God, Rust, I don’t trust you at all. I hope to hell you don’t trust me. I could leave whenever. That’s my prerogative. I don’t even need you to be here tomorrow. I just need you to fuck me._

He almost smiles. At least, it’s the closest thing you’ve seen to a smile on his face. He purses his lips into a tight line and nods and then before you can breathe he’s closed the space between you and picked you up, burning off all the oxygen around you. He throws your body down on the mattress and he’s tearing your dress off because now he gets your whole body. It’s all his. For the seconds when you’ll feel him in the universe and not be hungry any more. For now. 

Sometimes he takes you to the bar, his bar. Neither of you would call it your place (just like you’ll never have a song--all music, all places are yours just by virtue of you having experienced it and not yours because you forget them as soon as you’ve left) but it’s where it all began and even to you and Rust that means something. You’re on your second beer in an hour and he’s past ‘too far’ into his gin, helped along by whatever’s stewing in his veins. You’re watching a couple play darts and telling each other stories about what their lives are like, and he’s staring into the middle distance, ostensibly looking at you. 

_What the fuck Rust? You fuckin’ kidding me with this shit?_ There’s a blonde, balding man who appears out of nothing, striding towards you as though he is trying to push the air out of his way, and Rust instinctively puts out a hand in front of you, protecting you from whatever this man is about to throw before he realizes what is happening. Then he snaps his hand back like the proximity to your skin burned him. 

Rust swallows deeply. _Marty. I wasn’t aware we had any business tonight._

_You been leaving the precinct at a human hour the past few months like you actually have somewhere better to be than riding my ass all night and I decided I had a right to know. Turns out you’re fucking a kid? C’mon man, what the fuck. How did you rope her into your bullshit?_

_Any and all roping is consensual_ you say, taking a sip of your beer so you don’t throw it at him because you instinctively loathe this man who believes that he is saving you from yourself. Rust says nothing, his face hardened in anger, but you see the corner of his mouth twitch. 

_Miss, I don’t think you understand what you’re dealing with here. This gentleman is not fit company for a beautiful girl such as yourself. I’m sure you agree_ , he leaves a pause for you to offer your name, looking at you expectantly, but when no such offer is extended he continues, _that ol’ Rustin here is more than a little unhinged, and very probably dangerous. I wouldn’t feel, ah, safe, allowing you to continue without knowing what you’re getting yourself into._ Even with the little grin on his face, he looks as though butter wouldn’t melt and you’re fairly sure that his skin is stuffed up with muck and grime, the kind of thing you’d find in a swamp where someone had dumped toxic waste. Before you can punch him in the face, he turns to Rust. _GodfuckingdammitCohle, you know the law, is she even 18?_

Rust shrugs without moving his gaze. Asking your age never occurred to him.

_I’m 19_ you say to Rust, under your breath, not loud enough for the bartender to hear. Not to Marty.

_There you go, Hart. Happy now_ Rust says, furious. _Tell you what, I’ll buy you a drink and we’ll do some bonding. How ‘bout that. Get some of that ‘human connection’ you and the chief are always up my ass about._

On the way to a table, you glance at Rust, see his defensive, instinctive posture. You sit down and you try to understand how these two men could work together because you cannot imagine someone more fundamentally different from Rust than the man who is sitting across from you in the booth. You realize with a shiver that in another universe, the ones where you didn’t enter the bar that day and find Rust and free yourself from the world you thought you were doomed to die in, that this is the man you would have married. A man who thought he was clever while being crude, who thought his moral hypocrisy and complicity in the game of social convention somehow made him more pure and important and _right_ than Rust. Stronger than Rust, even. For not being broken by the world. Even though he’d been broken as sure as a wild mare. You place one finger against Rust’s wrist and feel his pulse racing, the stress expanding his heart. After a few minutes Rust stands and excuses himself to the men’s. _Wreck it, Sting_ his voice says in your head.

When you’re alone Marty leans in, like he’s finally got you, and whispers conspiratorially. _Now darlin’. You seem like a real smart girl. A man like Rust - well, when you been around as long as I have you start to realize that men like him seem dangerous and exciting, but really all he’s gonna do is destroy you. You’re gonna waste the best years of your life on this old man and then he’ll die of an overdose and then where will you - you gotta think these things through, girl._

You lean forward too, wrap your lips around the cocktail straw, then whisper back _Would you fuck me?_

His jaw drops. _Wha- I’m sorry?_

You smile sweetly, dab at your lipstick with your ring finger. _I said, would you fuck me? I think I was pretty clear? At the end of the day would you leave your high minded bullshit at the door for a chance to be near me? To be under me? Or let me guess, maybe behind me, huh? Your eyes lingered on my ass, is that where you set up camp with your girlfriends and paid girlfriends? You’re so upset about Cohle fucking me I have to wonder just how young your taste in girls runs. Barely legal? Underage? Children, even? Ever thought about that? I bet you get so angry when you have to deal with those fuckers because you won’t even let yourself think about it. What those men see._

He’s slack jawed at first, and then he starts to get angry. _I don’t - you’re as fucked as him, you know that?_

No, of course you don’t. You’re squeaky clean. Looks like you’re in the minority then you say as you light a cigarette. You take a drag and stare at him. _I’ll spare you a lecture because for some reason Rust seems to think you’re a cut above the human garbage heap where I’d put you, but I’ll say this. If I hear this kind of shit from you again, I will not let Rust’s spot of compassion for you stop me. The hog’s gut that hangs between your legs does not mean you own me. You own nobody and nothing and I hope every woman you try to possess spits in your eye because then maybe one day you will understand just how fucked up your view of this whole goddamn entire world is._

Rust slides back into the booth next to you, his presence serving as an instant balm for the anger you feel. _Well, now_ Rust says. _What did I miss?_

You flash him your best company smile, the one that slid you through life before him, the one that Rust calls your ‘real person smile’. _We were just getting acquainted_ you say. Rust puts his arm around you in a gesture you know is for Marty.

_Well ain’t that nice_ Rust says, grinning at the man across the table just as sweetly, and you wonder if maybe you should start coming into the office with him just so you two can play with your new toy.

When you wake up and feel his eyes on you, you lay there, still, surprised by the softness of the moment. There’s sun in the room. He knows you’re awake, feels the hitch in your breathing, and moves over on the mattress, slinging his arm over you. He kisses your lips, which are still open from nightbreath. It’s sweet, you think, and immediately wince, opening your eyes to make sure nothing’s gone wrong in the night, nothing’s about to flood you both. You smile up at him as he strokes your shoulder and your arm, feeling your skin, running his finger over the bruises he left when he pressed into you. Your neck had burst open as his teeth broke the skin and when he touches the marks lightly with his thumb the itching sting of the pain thrills you. He’s incredibly gentle and the only effect it has on you is to make you feel like your skin is two sizes too small for your body, as though it went through the extra dry cycle during the night.

_People must think you’re being tortured_ he says, watching his thumb stroke the line of your neck in the morning sunlight. 

_I am_ you say. He nips your chin in agreement (and even that’s gentler than the touches he gives you as you’re both running out the door) and buries his face into your chest and you hesitantly, haltingly move to tug at the hairs at the nape of his neck, wrapping them around your index finger until you see his skin begin to pull away from the muscle beneath and then unraveling and choosing another spot to inflict this tiny pain, unsure of what he wants, what he’ll allow, and it comes to you you’re lying in the eye of the storm with the devil himself. 

_Do you phenandsf fhor plewdf_ he mumbles into your collarbone.

_What?_

_Do you_ fuck _other people?_ he says, rolling his head to the side so he can enunciate better. _Who see the bruises I leave and promises to be more gentle? To take care of you? To protect you and hurt me?_ His eyes travel up your torso. _Tell me you laugh at them._

_Would that bother you?_ you ask curiously. _If I was?_

He pulls his head up to look at you, your lips. Rust hears better with his eyes than his ears. 

_I don’t own you. Do what you want._

_That’s not what I asked, asshole. Would it would bother you?_

He is still for a second, considering, then he drops his head an inch from your chest and you feel the heat of his exhale without the pressure of his lips. Slowly, excruciatingly, he runs his tongue through the no man’s land between your breasts and up your neck to your ear, where he whispers _The darkness gives me moving pictures and the drugs give me names and I take what I am given and I tear them limb from limb. You are not mine but you are of my getting. Yes, yes, yes. It is the nightmare._

_Those men could never hurt you. I hurt you_ you explain, the calmness of your voice a sharp contrast to the lightning of your skin. Then you pull him to you roughly, smashing your lips together and crashing your teeth, and kiss him so he knows not to forget, so that it’s burned into his skin like a brand. He knows you are his and he is yours but that it’s irrelevant because you no longer exist as separate entities but as calico, chimeras of each other, having both absorbed and given enough that you can no longer remember what came from who. But kissing, that’s muscle memory. You never answered.

The hardest part of building is the silent negotiation. It’s as though there are rules that you set down together once upon a time but neither of you remembered to write them down and there’s a nagging feeling that they’ve mutated while you weren’t looking and without your consent, but then again there’s also the feeling you hallucinated them all for self-justification in the first place. Without asking, you live. Eventually x, the number of nights you sleep on his mattress goes from ‘equal to’ to ‘greater than’ y, the nights you spend in your dorm room, without either of you drawing attention to the fact and he makes a different key to slip under the mat so that you can carry the one you use with you. You don’t want to push him, the spartan nature of his apartment inspiring a fear he will accuse you of trying to make it habitable, (and therefore even _more_ unspoken that you’re trying to make _him_ habitable) although you’re not--you would never. There’s the one morning you’re running late for class because you had to put on extra concealer and you leave a lipstick on his cracked, empty counter. You think of it in class and your fingers clench up around your pen, giving you cramps, and a sudden rock of anxiety sits in your stomach for reasons that you don’t even know how you would explain to anyone who would ask you what’s wrong. You watch the clock, synced up with your heartbeat, until you can get away and fix it, fix everything that’s wrong, make it better. 

You push the the door open and slip into the silent apartment. It’s different when he isn’t there, like a breath you held for too long has gone sour in your chest, and you feel like a burglar or an intruder because you want to be there so badly. Your lipstick is gone from the counter and for a moment you think he’s thrown it away. It makes sense. Those things, that part of you, don’t belong here. But then you open the medicine cabinet on a hunch, drawn to it, and there it is, the small, shiny black tube standing alone on its own shelf. Even the top shelf is sparse, just holding a comb and a stick of deodorant and some bottles of pills that probably weren’t prescribed by a doctor because they have names on them like “Marco Corleone” and “James Yeung”, and the bottom shelf just has your toothbrushes and toothpaste, so it’s not like he had a lot to move to make room for you. Yet it’s a concession, the shelf, without being a sacrifice--this place for you gives you an intense sense of pride. 

It moves slowly from there. The next week a hairbrush joins the lipstick. Floss. A hair tie. Then some school books end up underneath the table. Rust never says a word. But from him, a lack of objection is as potent as an invitation and you begin to feel, if not at _home_ in the apartment, as though it would not spit you out if you fucked up in some way. 

Wednesday nights you have class late, but you’re still usually home hours before Rust. But one night you let yourself in and find him at the kitchen ‘table’, a mass of photographs assembled around him. 

_Maggie_ he says, only your name and already passed through hundreds of mouths hundreds of times, abused and obliterated of any real meaning, but it falls from his lips like a last-ditch prayer. He looks so painfully human for a moment, not just human but young, small, surrounded by papers and photos that leave echoes in his retinas, that you go to him and drape your arms around his neck and kiss his cheek. He’s stiff for a moment, as he is any time you initiate touch, before he relaxes into your arms and leans back his head to kiss your neck with his teeth. 

_What is it?_ you ask, taking in the battered bodies posed so brutally in the photos. He stands, awkwardly breaking your arm circle so he can walk away from the table and grab the pack of cigarettes from the counter. Shakes one out and lights it as he looks up but he’s not looking at the pack or at you or at anything that exists in the corporeal world. You take the opportunity to scan the table.

_There’s no such thing as a good man in this world. The genres and varieties of evil are many, the multitudinous seas incarnadine. Bad men fighting away the others, one style of cruelty winning out over another_. He takes a sip from an open bottle of gin, looking as though he’d rather be eating the glass. _But then you have to wonder what the fuck is wrong with the world if it’s people like me who are the last line of defense._

_Are there still bastards that can surprise you?_ you ask. You can’t imagine that there are horrors beyond the hell he’s already set up shop in. 

He takes a long drag and finally turns his focus to you. You can see his pupils dilate slightly, his eyes get darker. _Sting, I spent five years so deep under I thought I was leaving in a body bag, or as Chief Broom. There’s not a lot that I haven’t seen or been disgusted by. The first few years are like that--you spend them thinking, well, now I’ve seen everything. This is really the worst possible thing that has ever happened. Jesus. And then slowly, devastatingly, you come to realize that the next thing you see won’t be the worst thing there is. That there will always be something worse. The depths of human depravity will never be reached. But that, even that, is less than the day you wake up and realize how much better off you are not being human. Because then, finally, you come to terms with the fact that there is no ‘better nature’, no dawn, that life is a sojourn lurking in the darkest part of the night._

Tentatively, you cross the room and stand beside him. You know enough not to touch him, but the quarter of an inch between your arms is alive with energy, making the dark, fine hairs on your forearm stand at attention. He stares off into space and you know he is remembering, or seeing, whatever appears before his eyes when he jolts awake in the night and bites down on your arm to keep himself from screaming. 

_I got this tattoo three years ago, in Texas_ he says, lifting his arm a little, without prompting. He doesn’t volunteer personal information often and you keep quiet when he does, scarcely daring to breathe, not wanting to shatter the spell. _What does it say about me, or any man, that we chose to mark and brand ourselves in this way? It’s forever, they say, in the imperfect forever that we understand, forever being as long as it takes for the skin to melt from the bones. Maybe it means nothing. But I thought I would burn that realization into me, the spiraling, diving phoenix about to burst into flames. The realization that I stood at that darkest hour and I let my body become a lightening rod of human depravity and degradation thinking that I could drag as much of the worst as possible down into hell with me. Maybe that would be enough for someone somewhere to never find her darkness because I wiped a ledger clean. Clean enough._

_That’s too much for one man to carry_ you say, digging your thumbnail into your wrist. You realize you’ve never seen him so vulnerable and you have a nagging feeling that the live wire next to you is about to light the house on fire, burn it down with you inside it.

_That’s why I’m not anymore._ He is quiet for a moment. ( _Carrying it, or a man?_ you think). _Do you know Gethsemane?_ he asks, staring at the tiles on the floor.

_Where Jesus died?_ you ask, your third grade catechism class you didn’t know you still had.

_No. Where he accepted his crucifixion. He agreed to mount the cross. Can you imagine, he says slowly, what it is for a man to choose that, willingly. Happily, even._

_Did you get up on a cross?_ you ask because if this is what it means to be a savior, _the_ savior, you think men thousands of years ago should have burned their gospels and never told the world the story.

_No. But I took another man’s name and I climbed down into hell when the system I fought for asked me to and I soaked up as much poison as I could before I climbed back out again. As He will, they say, if there was any justice in the world. But he won’t ever climb out. And I doubt that I ever did, actually, now that we mention it._

He pushes himself off the counter and walks to the fridge. Wordlessly he takes out two beers and opens them, offering one to you. You realize that the brand’s more expensive than he’d ever buy for himself and you remember that night last weekend when you lamented the lack of beer in his apartment. So this was bought for you, he stood in the store and remembered, maybe even went to the store specifically to get it for you, and worried that his beer wasn’t good enough, that _he_ wasn’t good enough, and you feel such an overwhelming pressure on your chest that it almost knocks you off your feet and you think _Is this what they meant when they were trying to describe eternal devotion and decided upon ‘love’? Because most times it feels too small, but right now, you think you know what they were saying._ You take it and he sees your realization in your face, but his eyes drop to the ground so quickly you could have imagined the silent plea.

So you take the beer and say nothing. He leans back against the fridge door and takes a drag and you walk to him and lean against his chest, arms by your sides, not saying a word, pressing yourself into him. His hands move slowly down the sides of your body, grazing the hairs standing on edge, and he puts his chin on top of your head and you know he feels what you are thinking, whispering over and over in your mind like a prayer. _You’re not fucking dying on that cross if I can help it._

The nights that Rust screams and sweats are few, but they hurt you as if he were your child, and the icy sense of impotence that weighs down your stomach makes you ill. You assume the demons are fueled mostly by the chemicals that eat at him and the ghosts that come with his line of work, but sometimes you get sparing, sporadic clues, shards of dreams and memories that you clutch at, try to piece together to make sense of the man who lays beside you. Most of the time it’s nonsense, gibberish beyond recognition, but there’s one name: Cass. You wonder if she was a girlfriend, a woman who went before you and failed in your common goal and left. You hate her and hate yourself for hating this woman you don’t know and will never meet like some jealous teenager. But not as much as you hate yourself when you start looking, actively looking. Rust doesn’t have photos on his walls, but you’ve seen two or three jammed in the box, the one where the guns and the drugs and the secrets live. You’ve never opened it before, never had a reason to risk the wrath Rust would rain down on you, but one night he tells you he’s going under, forewarning that you rarely get but that he’s getting better about. He knows you worry. You nip at his lip and whisper goodbye, already feeling a sting of shame at the plan. 

You wait two hours, just to make sure he’s really gone, then drag it out. Coke. Bullets. Expensive whiskey (must have been a gift, Rust’s never spent over twenty dollars on alcohol in his goddamn life). A battered leather jacket. Syringe. Pill bottles that you wouldn’t find in the cabinet. Then the photos. The first is a man and a woman, standing in front of an old fashioned A-frame. His parents, his house, you guess. It’s old. The woman looks tired, the man dazed. You turn over the next one. Young Rust. Maybe four or five, and you smile a little looking at his stupid grin. He’s holding a baby while cross legged on the ground, his arms arranged exactly how someone instructed him to, you can tell. It’s awkward and haphazard, but god he looks thrilled. A sibling? He’s never mentioned a sibling. Of course, he doesn’t mention much, but still. The last is a school photo, one of those senior ones where the boys actually brushed their hair and the girls wore whatever family jewelry their mothers had been saving for them, stuff they’ll get when they’re married. She’s beautiful, long reddish curls, laughing into the camera. But her smile doesn’t reach her eyes, which are green, flecked with gold, and hollow. They far outshine the pearls on her neck. You turn the photo over, and read, in a woman’s careful, tight script, _Cassandra Cohle, 1989. So he does have a sister._ Maybe they don’t speak? But then why the photos? The nightmares? For a man who can count his personal possessions on one hand, two pictures of Cassandra is basically a shrine.

You toss and turn all night, which is normal when Rust is gone, but tonight the sad eyes of Cassandra Cohle watch you through the darkness. You try to wait it out, to outlast it, but the dreams come the next night as well. Early in the morning you give up the pretense. It’s easy to get dressed in soft dawn light and are downtown before the library has even opened. You pace out front until a harried, sleepy woman lets you in, eyeglasses askew, as you demand to see the microfilm. Its a long shot, finding anything. Maybe a birth announcement? A wedding? but it’s worth a try. You guess that Cassandra must have been about seventeen in that picture, so you start with the local newspaper from Rust’s hometown, 1970 on through to the present. Rust’s reaction, or potential reaction, to your prying keeps nagging you like a gnat, but you can’t help but feel like Rust would be at least a little proud of your detective work. 

It doesn’t take long, but the longer you read the more you regret coming here, regret opening the Pandora’s Box and this fucking case, this poison. _Cops Kill One in Raid on Meth House. Cohle Family Demands Justice for Slain Daughter. Cohle Girl “Model Student”, Say Teachers. Wrongful Death Suit in Cohle Cop Shooting. Cohle Death Brings War on Drugs Home._ A smaller piece mentions Rust becoming a state detective, being promoted after her death, and you find a photo of him testifying at the manslaughter trial. He’s looking straight up into the camera, only six or seven years younger than the man who has become your world, and you know he sees you. _He was already a cop when she died, you think. Did he know them? Was he there?_ You slam the machine off, attracting a disapproving stare from the librarian, but you’re already running out the door, down the steps, all the way home. 

When Rust gets back, eventually and you wouldn’t be able to even guess what day or time, you’re sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, deep into a bottle of whiskey. He looks exhausted, sweaty and dirty and you can only imagine what hell he just climbed out of. _You can’t tell him you know. But to lie to him, even by omission, is unthinkable._

_Hey_ you say, picking at the hem of your shirt. _Did it go ok?_

Even with him in this state, he sees through you. _What happened?_ his entire body shifts, throwing you off, working with the whiskey to disorient you. You swallow hard and stand up by supporting yourself against the wall, anticipating that this is a conversation you ought to be on equal ground for. 

_Why didn’t you ever tell me about Cassandra?_

Rust drops his bag, entire body tensing. _What did you do?_

_I didn’t - you say her name. In your sleep. I got curious_ you say, crossing your arms. Rust strides across the room and knocks the bottle out of your hand and you jump back, bare feet, from the shattered glass and splashing alcohol. 

_How dare you_ he’s not yelling but his neck is tight and veined and you remember why you used to be afraid of him. He grabs your shoulders, too close, and shakes you hard. _How fucking dare you, you -_

_You’re the one who said her name_ you mutter, stubborn to the last. He shakes you again and his face is bitter, hard, mean, tosses you aside and you pick your steps so as not to slip in the whiskey. He stalks off towards the bedroom and you jump to follow, pulling on your boots from the corner. _You think you can paint me as some sort of Judas, that’ll make abandoning me ok?_

When you look in you see he’s dragged out that trunk, throws it open and even though you put everything back exactly right he shakes his head, livid. _The dust is different._

_I have a right to know, ok?_ You put your hand on your chest, clench and unclench your fingers in frustration. _It matters to me!_

_It’s my goddamn business. You wanna know something you fucking ask me, got it?_

_Like you’d tell me_ you’re yelling but you were ready for that line of defense, fighting for this choice that was less choice than compulsion. _Like you would ever volunteer anything that you think would make you more vulnerable. I know nothing ABOUT YOU!_

_Yeah, well, I don’t owe you shit. You don’t get to pick and choose-_

_You don’t owe me shit?! Grow the fuck up Rust. This is the kind of thing you fucking tell people! Well, not_ people _, but me. You tell_ me.

He laughs, cruelly, his accent getting thick. _Why? So you can saigh, hold mah hand ahnd tell me how goddahmn sorrah y’are? Like that’ll fuckin’ do anything? You being fuckin’ sorrah?_

Your nose crinkles involuntarily. _I_ am _sorry you fucking moron. I care because it happened to you and I CARE about you._

_Yeah, well I told you not to do that._ He slams the lid of the trunk down and stalks back into the kitchen, straight for a bottle of vodka.

_Not to do what? Care? Care about you, you asshole? Fine_ you say, grabbing the bottle out of his hand and downing a gulp. _Fine. I don’t care about you and you don’t care about me. Great. If you don’t fucking care then why are you so goddamn angry?_

_What’d you do? Aftah... aftah the pictures?_ He snatches the bottle back from you and takes more than a shot of his own. 

You pause, nonplussed. _I went to the library. Newspapers. I know she was shot, by a cop. She was at a house, a lab, and there was a raid. Your parents sued. They lost, you split town and became a detective, of all things._

_Great. Fuckin’ great. You got the whole thang figura’d out, huh? Maybe ah should take you down to the station an’ they can give you a fuckin’ bahdge. You be tha detective, huh?_

_Am I wrong?_ you ask, feeling reckless as you grab another turn at the vodka. The brush of your fingers against him shocks you like electricity and you see him flinch back.

He coughs, turns away. You don’t know tha hahlf of it.

_Then tell me. If the truth matters as much as you say, tell it. God! You think you have to do everything alone, hold everything up tight in there_ and you slam both hands on him, shove against his chest, knocking you both off balance slightly. _Hold everything so fucking tight until you fucking die from everything rotting inside of you but if you opened your eyes for one goddamn second you’d see that I’m still here and you’re just going to nail yourself up there without ever looking to see who you’re about to nail up beside you._

Rust doesn’t answer and for a moment everything is quiet except the ragged sound of your breathing in unison. He wipes the back of his hand against his mouth and shakes his head again. _Never do that again. Never. Or we’re done, Sting._

_Fine_ you say. He slams back the rest of the bottle, about half full, and then pushes past you, banging the front door hard as he goes. It’s not thick enough for that, it rattles uncomfortably close to breaking. 

You lay down in bed and for the second night in a row you don’t sleep, because there’s a tiny voice that whispers in the back of your mind _not coming back, not coming back. You needed to know, you remind yourself, you’re not in the wrong here. He can’t expect you not to want to understand. Know him better. You ruined everything_ it whispers.

It’s exhausting, being that upset. It takes a lot out of you. The whisky and vodka do enough to dull the sharp corners that you’ve fallen asleep when you hear him open the door, cross the room to you like he’s done so many nights. But tonight you stay frozen, unsure.

_Sting_ he says roughly so you sit up as he turns on the light. He looks awful, ragged and miserable, and it kind of makes you want to throw up or cry. Both, really.

_I-_ you start, but he cuts you off.

_You wanna know? I’m gonna tell you. I’m gonna tell you_. He stays at the opposite end of the room from you, which is for the best because his entire body is a loaded gun. 

_I was five when Cass was born_ he’s slurring a little and you can only imagine how drunk he is. _I loved her. Loved her more than… well, more than anything, really, more than I had any claim to. I fucking loved that kid. God, she was_ something _, Sting. I knew it, my parents knew it, the whole goddamn town knew it. And I tried to be a good big brother, I really did, but- maybe I didn’t try hard enough, or I didn’t think about what, what me doin’ shit would mean to her. For her. I was snorting by the time I was 15, sick of those teachers who hated me and the kids who beat me up because they hated me for talking back and never seeing a way out of that godforsaken life. I never, never gave ‘em to her or anything, god no. But she knew. She knew._

_Cass was so smart. So fuckin’ smart, she coulda been anything. And it wasn’t, it wasn’t even just that, it was this sense that you’d get when she was talking to you, like you were her favorite person in the entire world and that she was memorizing everything that came out of her mouth. Everyone, I mean everyone loved her, wanted to do things for her. ‘Cause she could have been mean, you know, she was beautiful and p-popular, but every goddamn person in our lives felt like she cared for them. She did! She did care. Made everyone around her better for it, like some sort of shiny fucking light or communion wafer, washing away the sins of the world._

_I wasn’t anything special ever, nothing to write home about--not strong or smart or quick--but I still would of done anything for that little girl. My baby sister. I didn’t try, not like you. Not like Cass would of._ At this point, watching him pace holes in the floor, you’ve wrapped your arms around your knees, trying to make yourself as small as possible. _I was around, but barely, you know. I joined the cop academy ‘cause I didn’t know what else to do. Thought I could bully people around who’d bullied me. And I knew how to read people, anyway, that’s the one skill I had. Except for her. Fucking blind to her. I don’t… I didn’t know._

_So one night, I guess. She was seventeen, fucking seventeen years old. A child. Started running with these boys, older than me. Men, I guess, but they--they weren’t men. Barely even human. Meth heads. Dealers. I knew them, actually. Bought coke from them once. In another town. Not our jurisdiction. One night she calls me. I can barely understand her, she’s so, his voice cracks, she’s so fucked up, but_ and he begins to recite, in a cold, detached voice, _“Rust, I fucked up. It’s all fucked, I’m so sorry. Tell Mom and Dad that I’m so sorry.” I told her to slow down, slow down. “I did bad, Rust. I ruined it, and now it’s fucked, and it’s all over and I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to do this. To anyone.” I told her I would come pick her up, even though I’d been drinking, even though I shouldn’t be driving, just tell me where you are, I’ll come, I’ll come and I’ll get you, and I’ll fix it, Cass. She said she was at this guy Davie’s place._ He shakes his head, slams his open palm against the wall. _Cryin’ and fucked up in a goddamn meth house. I told her to stay put. I told her to promise me that she wouldn’t move, that I’d be right there. She promised. She promised she wouldn’t leave._

_By the, by the time_ he chokes on the words, steadies himself. _When I got there, they were lifting her into a body bag. There was a raid, I guess, the cops planned a raid. I didn’t tell anyone she was there, I didn’t tell anyone I was coming, to wait, to be careful. Burst in to bust the idiots for drug running and she tried to get out, run away from them towards the cops. She wanted out. She was going to leave. They shot her instead. Shot her dead, right in the head._ You can see the tears in his eyes but you wouldn’t dream of doing anything about them. Even if you wanted to, your whole body is filled with mercury, because hearing Rust tell it is a million times worse than pouring over those old slides in the library where they couldn’t list the details of the crime, because you can see it, see the crumpled body of Cassandra Cohle being dumped unceremoniously in a bag, Rust falling to his knees and tearing his nails down his face when he realized he was too late. 

_My parents sued the cops but they said she shouldn’t have been there. Claimed she wouldn’t’ve run if she wasn’t just as guilty as the boys._ He shakes his head and water hits the ground. _She was scared. She was a kid, and she was scared, and I told her to STAY god fucking dammit I LEFT HER THERE I put her there she would have been gone already I as good as killed her_ and that’s when he breaks and you watch Rust Cohle cry and you realize he’s never said this out loud before. You stand. Give him time to get used to the movement before you move towards him. You ask _but you stayed a cop? Even, even after that?_

_I will, if it’s the last thing I do, wipe out the scum of their ilk. On both sides of the line. I have to, now. Every one I put away is another gift for her._

You walk towards him, palms open like you’re surrendering. There’s nothing you can say that won’t sound hollow, nothing to convey the fact that you understand a little bit more of the depths of his misery and loathing and pain. He lets you approach and you come close then whisper _I’m sorry... Thank you for telling me_ and when he doesn’t lash out or run you touch his face, and he’s still for a moment before he lets himself sink into your touch, eyes closing. 

_Rust, it wasn’t your fault_ you whisper as he folds his arms around you. _Yes_ he breathes into your ear. _Yes. It was_. And nothing you say will ever convince him otherwise.

You want him to understand, to see that there’s a point to all this, a sharing of strength and capacity for survival. He won’t forgive you for looking through his things, but you never hoped he would, and he starts to give you things, story things, perhaps realizing that you’re prepared to do it again if the need arises. He tells you when Cass’s birthday comes. He tells you how his parents couldn’t handle the grief, how his father screamed at him, during one drunken argument, that he could not figure out for the life of him why God had taken the wrong child, how he woke one morning to find his mother gone and the upstairs shotgun smoking. And it’s less heavy, somehow, together. 

Rust would never say it and it’s likely he doesn’t even realize it himself, but the case he’s working starts to erode the few fragments of soul he still possesses. He is tired, less engaged, and more and more nights he comes home after four, if he comes at all. You don’t worry about him, God knows he’s been through far worse and he’d laugh at you for something as weak as worry. All you do is stay, silent when you can tell he needs it, detached when you know physical contact would burn him like holy water. But he knows you are there, a quiet, unwavering touchstone in the shadows.

You watch him work, lying on the mattress pretending to read for school while you watch him fill up the blank walls with photos and documents and maps. It’s fascinating and bizarre and more than a little frightening, watching his mind work. He pops a handful of pills, downers probably, to quiet the demons running circles around his mind. You make a noise, adjusting on the bed, and he turns around and looks at you, seems surprised but not displeased to see you. 

_What do you feel when you hear the word Carcosa?_

_Carcosa?_

_Mmh_. he takes a last drag on his dying cigarette.

_What is it?_

_That’s the million dollar question, Sting._ he stubs it out and crosses the room to you. _The fuckin’ million dollar question. Just tell me what you think when you hear it._

You hesitate a moment, trying to give the right answer. _Sounds like carcass. It’s hard, a little bloody. Unforgiving._

_Good._ He stretches out on his back next to you, without touching you, holding himself at a distance, and you abandon your book to the floor, rolling onto your side to face him. 

_It could be someone’s name. Or just a word in another language. But I think it’s a place. Somewhere you don’t wanna end up._

_Somewhere I don’t want to end up, or somewhere you don’t want to end up? Or other people?_ he asks. _Huh?_ You shrug. He turns over to look at you. _How does it taste?_ he says.

_Taste?_

_Yes. Can you taste it?_

You shake your head slowly, the quick tinge of panic in your stomach you still always feel when you’re afraid you’re going to disappoint him. He pinches your neck, just under your jawbone. 

_Don’t worry, little Sting. Your brain’s not quite as fucked as mine. But we knew that already._

_What do they taste like to you? Words?_

_You never know what you’re getting with synesthesia. That’s the problem with random misfirings of neural synapses. Makes you wonder what else is going wrong up there. Or maybe right. It’s nice, sometimes, feeling those things. Drugs don’t help either. Or do, depending on what you’re looking for. The hallucinations play into it sometimes, giving me a whole world to go with the word._

_What about Carcosa?_

_It’s acidic. The bile you taste when you swallow to keep down vomit._

_Pleasant._

_Others are more pleasurable_ he says, and now he runs his hand up your bare thigh to your hip bone, and he digs his nails under your bone. 

_Tell me_ you murmur, arching your back. 

He pulls himself up and straddles your legs, bending to pull your underwear down, replacing his grip with teeth and biting into bone. You yelp softly. He pushes your white tank top up with the bridge of his nose. _It’s not just words. Tastes have colors. Colors have sounds. It’s the goddamn buddy system._ He kisses the soft skin of your stomach then sucks it back against his teeth, hard, and you push into him. 

_‘Gin’ is cigarette smoke and wood shavings and fresh dirt_ he says into your stomach, then moves up to suck against the soft underside of your breast. _‘Cocaine’, I hear dogs barkin’, yappin’ and tearin’ at each other._ He pulls your shirt over your head and bites down hard on your lip. _Smell of blood, chains rattling. Metal clanging. But dried blood, that’s tires squealing on new pavement, smoke and rubber._ He kisses you, sucking up the blood from his bite. You kiss him hard and say against his lips _What am I?_

_Your skin_ he sniffs against your neck _gold, but tinged with coal specks. Charcoal. Your name’s like water, lappin’ up on the side of a boat. The boat movin’ with the tide._

You pull his shirt open, popping buttons as he speaks into your neck. _Maggie, or Sting?_

_Christ, I’m gonna have to sew those back on. Maggie. But Sting, your real name - that’s red. Burns like fire on my lips._

_Fire and wa-ahter?_ you ask, the second half gasp as he pushes into you.

He’s silent for a moment, mouth on your neck and hands in your hair, but you can feel his lips pull up in a smile. _You contain multitudes. You are a world contained in a single shell._

_Your world_ you breathe, before unraveling around him. _Our world._

And for once, he doesn’t fight you.

The house is dirty and overrun and there are bodies everywhere and the smell of sweat and alcohol and sex almost chokes you. 

_Stay close to me_ he mutters under his breath.

_Where else would I go_ you laugh.

_And don’t talk to anyone._

_How do you know these people?_ you ask because even the idea of Rust having friends is too bizarre to even consider. You’re not stupid. You know where you are.

_I only know one. And we’re leaving as soon as we find him_ he says and he reaches behind him, grabbing your wrist and holding it tight as he pulls you through the squawking crows. It’s the Rust version of holding hands and it’s comforting, centering you as the anarchy of the crowded party threatens to push you over the edge. 

He lets go of you when he finds whoever he’s looking for. A hulking man stands in front of a door and you know that Rust is heading inside.

_It’s Crash. Trett’s expecting me._

The man nods once and opens the door, and Rust looks over his shoulder as he crosses the threshold. _Wait here_ he says silently. _I’ll come back for you._

You say nothing. _I never thought you wouldn’t_ you think and immediately jump to what would happen if he didn’t come back, if he never came back. That realization in itself is terrifying enough to make you bury your fingers in the bruise on your forearm he gifted you three nights ago, just trying to center yourself.

It feels like a second, possibly less. You never closed your eyes, because as Rust would say _don’t be an idiot are you_ trying _to get yourself killed_ but you separated yourself from your body as you used to do around the dinner table or when you had to come in late for extracurriculars and watch your track coach stare at your breasts in your too-tight shirt. You’d make it like you were watching a movie. A movie of your own body and everyone else around you. 

So for you, time hadn’t passed between when Rust left and when he reappeared in the arms of a man who had at least twelve tattoos, red-rimmed eyes, and some sort of revolver tucked into his jeans. It takes you a second to scream, the bile rising in your throat, the sound traveling. Another second to lunge forward, attempting to claw the flesh from the man’s face, yet another to realize three men are already restraining you. A white man emerges from the back room but you’re too busy attempting to wrench your arms from their sockets to notice. 

_Get that bitch and her boytoy out of here_ he orders and the men behind you drag you from the room, out the front door. The others wait until the first man tosses Rust into the dust like a rag doll and goes back inside to release you. They needn’t have bothered. You’ve forgotten all about them in your scramble to get to Rust’s side.

_Rust_ you say, throat raw and scratchy _Rust, wasp, please, Rust, god RUST what did Rust please please Rust god please wakeupwakeupwakeup_ his form blurring through the tears in your eyes. _Stay with me you fucker come on Rust don’t DO this_ you cry, trying to drag his body into the pickup. 

Someone appears by your side, helping you to pick him out of the dirt and putting him into the passenger’s seat. You’ll never know who the man was, or care. A blood bubble appears at the corner of his mouth and bursts, dribbling down his chin. _That’s his favorite shirt_ you think. _Don’t_ do _this to me, Rustin Cohle_ you say aloud _come on we’ll be there soon. Hospital_ you think, grabbing the keys out of his pocket and starting the ignition _hospital hospital nearest hospital_. Your mind races. 

First gas station you see on the highway, you pull over, run in. _Your phone_ you plead. The man evaluates you and the state you’re in, looks out to the pickup, silently offers you the handset. He picks up on the fourth ring. 

_Whoever this is you sunnabitch I was about to-_ he says before you interrupt, choking on your tears. 

_Marty, what’s the nearest hospital at, uh, near Dequincy._

_Maggie?_ he asks, confused. A girl murmurs in the background.

_DEQUINCY. HOSPITAL_ you scream into the receiver. 

_Calcasieu Urgent_ he says immediately, instinctively reverting to his cop training. _Take 27. Do you need a bus, or an escort?_

_No no no_ you reply glancing out the window of the store, into the car. He’s pale, and although the only visible wounds are on his face, his mouth is seeping red and you know that’s worse. _Thanks_ you say brusquely _I’ll let you know_ and hang up.

You break about twenty five traffic laws and get the ‘check engine’ light to turn on just during the twenty minute drive. Rust doesn’t wake up and when you pull into the parking lot, your eyes are streaming again, drawing trails through the blood that’s been dragged across your face at some point. The effect is probably terrifying, you realize, judging by the response of the emergency room when you run in, grasping at anyone you see. The white clothed orderlies pull Rust out of the car and place him on the stretcher, less gently than you’d like, but at least quickly. You watch helplessly, hugging yourself. You’re only wearing a cotton dress, you realize. You didn’t think you’d need anything more. It’s cold now though. Or maybe it’s the shock that’s making you shiver. _Be careful I need him_ you sob after them, heaving so hard your lungs feel like they’re bleeding. A nurse tries to bring you inside, tells you someone will park the car. _No_ you bark _Rust lets only me drive._ You collapse into a heap on the black tar. _Only me_ you cry _only, only I’m allowed._ The nurse wraps her arms around you and takes the keys from your hands. _I’m the only one_ you whimper.

The nurse wraps you in a blanket that you think she scrounged from the maternity ward and places a cup of terrible coffee in your hands that serves mostly to keep your hands warm, help with the shock. Another one, her disciple, takes care of the gash on your leg you got from kicking the men who held you. They were holding knives, apparently, so you get a few stitches. She leaves you alone but places you within view of the nurses’ station, where she’s working, so she can keep an eye on you. A man comes in with a gunshot wound, there’s a baby with a fever so high the mother (who speaks only Spanish) tried to put her in the freezer, a teenage boy who was driving drunk and his dead girlfriend. They come in and they leave. You don’t know if it’s still the same day.

When the phone at the desk rings, she picks it up, listens for a second, and looks at you. _Maggie_ she says, loudly but not harshly. You stand up, walk over, take the receiver. 

_What’s going on, what’s happening_ Marty says immediately. You shrug. _Maggie? For God’s sake, Maggie, what happened, where’s Rust? Have they_ \- you take the phone from your ear and stare at it in your hand, the noises coming out of it. You slowly offer it to the nurse, who takes it and listens carefully, nodding and saying things like _mmhmm_ and _sure, hun_. 

You stand in front of her and pull the blanket around yourself more closely until she hangs up. _Sweethear’_ , she says, _do you undahstahnd me_. You nod. _Even though nothing makes sense_ you think _nothing ever nothing ever will not your STUPID words you dumb cunt. He’s in surgery_ the nurse tells you _your boy there was beaten pretty badly. Now, he’s got some internal bleedin’, do you know what that means?_ You shake your head blankly. _Means those doctors gotta stop the bleedin’ or his insides’ll stop working, he’ll shut down. And he’s got some head injuries, so they’ve put him in what they call a ‘medic’lly induced coma’. They’ll tell you more when they know what the situation is, and what they need to do._ She looks at you sadly, shaking her head. _Girl, you too young to be comin’ in with this kind of shit. You need to find yo’self a steady man, like that boy on the phone. Y’hear me?_ You look her in the eyes, unblinking, until she breaks eye contact. You shuffle back to your seat.

Marty gets there in another fifteen minutes, probably coming straight from whatever whore house he was in, or sorority.

_Mags_ he says, breathing a sigh of relief (and although you’d never admit it, it’s good to have him there, someone that you know, even the hatred is comforting) _where’s Rust._

_They won’t tell me anything_ you say flatly. _I don’t, he’s got internal bleeding but I don’t know if he took anything before they, those guys broke him, Marty. And there’s a coma? They, the doctors, put him in a coma on purpose?_ You let yourself exhale, and your breath is harsh and full of unwept tears. _Why, why would they do that? Why would they put him in a, a coma?_

_I’ll go_ Marty says, putting his hand on your shoulder, causing you to flinch and draw back and his fingers to curl as he remembers who he’s with. _I’ll check on him._

The doctors say, once Marty has bashed enough heads to make some sort of a difference and proved that he's not completely useless, that Rust was _lucky._ That he'll wake up in a few days. That they managed to stop the internal hemorrhages and relieve some of the pressure in his skull. He'll be a long time recovering, they say, a long road ahead of him, but he's lucky he's got a pretty girlfriend to be his nursemaid. Marty pulls you away before you can bite out their tongues, watch the blood congeal on the floor. You manage to spit at them though, so that's something.

IA claims that he was on his own. Marty talks to them first, alone. After the last he doesn't trust you to behave yourself like a normal human being. Probably right. When he comes back to the hotel room, his t-shirt has been twisted between his hands, he can’t look you in the eye, the two of you don’t speak for about 25 minutes. When he finally does look up, it's a mix of confusion and dismay, a sharp contrast to his usual brash confidence. _They say he was on his own. They say he was addicted, that it wasn't a normal investigation. They’re refusing any culpability._ He walked to the window, the only sound in the room Rust’s breathing tube. _They're taking disciplinary action._ You start braiding your hair and he turns around. _Mags._

_I heard you._

_Anything you wanna add?_

_It’s a lie._

_Which part?_

_Pick one._

_It was an investigation. You have proof? Maggie?_

_Doesn’t matter. They got him hooked on the stuff regardless. They’re responsible. I’ll sue them. I’ll sue everyone. They wanted him there, in the thick of it, even if they never said it. Especially then. Plausible deniability. They knew he’d be keeping an eye on the game in town, know where the hotspots are._ You finish the braid, tie it off. _You knew something was up, didn’t you? They knew. They all knew. But a blind eye suited them. I don’t think he was ever recommended for counseling, or addiction. So they can fuck right off and I’ll tell them that. I’ll tell them about the number of times he woke up screaming and the day he was shaking so much the chief slapped him across the face and told him to “go take care of it”._

_He did?_

You shrug. _Does it matter?_

He nods. _That’s how you wanna play it?_

_Fuck them, that’s how._

A rustle comes from the bed and you both look over. Nothing. 

_So how does this work_ he asks abruptly. _Are you two… dating?_

You tilt your head to the side. _What?_

_Are you… only seeing each other? Or is it open?_

You laugh, to keep from choking. _Really? Now?_

_I just… I can’t picture it._

You stand up, walk close to him. _I barely like one person at a time. You think I would be in this… this whatever, if I didn’t feel like I absolutely had to? Would_ he? _There’s no way this would fit anyone else without destroying them. Not that I’m not, you know, not alive, or anything like that. It’s not about needs. It’s about musts._

He nods, and maybe, you think, as Rust’s partner, maybe he understands something about the reasons someone would be here, in this hospital room. Watching over the body on the bed. He’s here, isn’t he. 

_I’ll take care of it, then._

You saw a quote once, on a poster, or maybe it was on a blackboard in a classroom you passed, that burned itself into your brain: “He jumped the gun and they shot him dead.”

Rust wakes up a few days later.

You’ve been sleeping in a chair by the side of the bed. The nurse from the first night, who’s there more than any of the others and is the only one who will deal with you (all the others are frightened, you think) offered you a cot, but it was too comfortable. Dumb, you realize later, but you’re too proud to go back to her, so you’re stretching out your aching back by the window when he clears his throat. You turn, slowly. _Oh good._

_Where…_ he coughs. _Where are we?_

_Hospital. Aren’t you supposed to be a detective?_ You lick your lips nervously.

He looks up at you, squinting in the morning sunlight. _Mags, I-_

_I should get the nurse_ you say, and leave the room.

He’s tight and sore, but he can walk. He insists on walking, despite the doctors’ warning that he’ll rip out his stitches. You go home for the first time in days, to get him some clothes and the air feels stale. On the way back, you grab him a book from the hospital gift shop, some true crime thing, because otherwise he’ll look at you. And that’s not an option. He doesn’t get to do that, yet.

It’s a few days until they discharge him. He leaves the hospital in a wheelchair. A few of his colleagues? fellow cops? they’re not friends, come to see him out. Thank god for Marty, you think, not for the first time, pretending like you’re all fine, that everything’s fine. Thank god for the facade. You both know how to live in the facade. You remember the facade.

You’re silent as you drive the pickup home, where you’ve lived like a ghost for the past two weeks, touching things without feeling them, eating without tasting, living only for the moments you caught some of his scent lingering on the air. You’d wake sobbing and try to lean into arms you’d forgotten weren’t there, and then you wouldn’t cry anymore because it burned more to keep them inside.

Once you get him inside, pushing him up the ramp silently, he exhales deeply. He pushes himself out of the wheelchair and more falls than lies down on the bed. You stand, hands balled into fists, waiting for him to turn and meet your eyes. 

_Sting. I’m sorry._

_You put me through hell_ you say and you can hear your voice crack and you realize it’s true, you hate it but he needs to see this, what he did to you, and you know that the plan that’s been forming at the back of your mind for the past week is not actually an idle thought but a concrete fact, something you had known all along you would do. That’s fine. That’s what it should be.

_I ain’t had an easy time here either, Sting_. He pushes himself up onto his elbows and he’s watching you warily, like he’s not sure what the plan of attack is. _I wasn’t aware_ you think and you almost laugh but it sounds like a sob and maybe it is. 

_You’ve always said you know you who are, Rust. And there’s a victory in that, I’m not going to take it from you. But there are some things you positively, absolutely cannot be. It’s not easy for you, that’s fine. I’m not changing who you are. I’m changing the way you deal with who you are. You touched death and it touched me too and I said from the beginning that I would do anything but die for you._

_I don’t -_

_Shut up. I want you to see what happens when I touch death, I want to see if you feel it the way I did, if it hollows you out inside. Because while you were rotting in that hospital bed I was rotting on this mattress and I realized what I should have known from the moment I met you in the bar - we’re in the middle of the river, and if one of us sinks, the other does too. You aren’t allowed to sink us. Fucking scorpion on the back of the frog, s’what you are._

_Sting -_

_Shut the_ fuck _up Rust. Don’t you play your stupid cards with me, don’t give me some bullshit about how you weren’t meant for this world, there’s no excuse I’ll listen to._ You feel angry and sick, anticipating what you’re about to do, but not even a shred of you asks not to do it. He sits up now, and you can see it pains him but you turn your back and pull his trunk out from the closet, the trunk where his secrets live. The cocaine whose existence you confirmed last week is there, safe and secret in its plastic baggy, the emergency stash. You wrap your hand around it and go to the counter.

_Mags, no._ His voice is quiet horror, but he knows he can’t move fast enough. Not in his condition. You’ve watched him do it a million times so cutting the lines of coke on the cracked mirror he keeps for this purpose feels like the most natural thing in the world. 

_Three lines seems like enough, doesn’t it?_ you ask conversationally.

_Maggie, please god no, you’ve never done it before, you’ll kill yourself!_ His lungs pull at the air. _You’ll kill me._

_Yep_ you say and you look into his eyes and see the panic and the knowledge that he is too weak to stand, too weak to do anything but watch as you bend your face to the counter, like a proselytizer before an altar, and snort hard. 

One line. Your nose explodes as if you’d been punched and you can feel fire erupting, spreading across your face through your sinuses and burning your blood. You wipe your hand across your nose, hard.

_Maggie stop I understand just please don’t -_

The next line knocks the wind out of you and for a terrifying second you wonder if that’s the last feeling you’ll ever have but then you’re breathing and coughing and a million shards of glass tear their way through your veins, setting your bones on fire. 

Rust is crying like you’ve never seen, not the bitter, angry tears of his nightmares, but the helplessness of a child, and you swallow hard, steeling yourself. _Please Mags, Sting, I’ll do anything just don’t, you don’t know you can’t -_

The last one actually blinds you for a second, and you grip the counter to steady yourself. It doesn’t work. You fall to the floor, crumple into a pile. Your chest explodes. You feel hot and you think you might be starting to sweat and maybe your bones are turning to ash but your mind is painfully sharp, racing a million miles a minute and processing everything twice before it even happens. There’s panic in the air, tangible in your breathing. Your breathing stutters, stops, long enough for Rust to start from the bed, and starts again. Your heart is in your ears, you think, your body is metamorphosing.

You can’t feel all of your body, but you can turn around, enough to vomit. It feels like a few hours, but it might have just been minutes, or even seconds. His head is against the mattress, facing you, and his body is heaving with racking sobs.

_You’re done_ you say, voice creaking like it hasn’t been used in years.

_I’m done, I’m done, I swear, Mags, goddamn it, I’m done, please_ he sobs _never never please I don’t, why, why did you._

_So you’d know what it feels like_ you say, blinking slowly, trying to breathe again. _Like your chest being crushed beneath the weight. Watching that._

_I know, I’m sorry, I know, I won’t_ he pleads, crawling across the ground, blood seeping through his bandages grabbing at the hem of your skirt. _Never, never again._

_Good_ you reply, unsmiling. _Then go back to bed._ You exhale, trying to breathe normally, as he holds you, cradles you, almost reverently. _I’m not leaving, Rust_ you whisper. He nods, not listening.

Your relationship with him shouldn’t work. It’s a Hail Mary pass, a shot in the darkness, a belief too big for the system it needs to fit through, and yet somehow, beyond all reckoning, it fits through. You fit through. You fit through with brands on your skins from the red hot heat of the tunnel, but you make it.

You know him, know his moods, his schedule, well enough, to know when to broach the subject. It’s delicate. Obviously. But it’s burning you, not talking about it, and he’ll notice soon enough. He always does.

_So_ you say, pouring cereal for the both of you one morning because you’ve made him start eating like he wants to live, even if he’s just putting food in his mouth because you told him to, it doesn’t really matter. _I want a baby._

_No_ he says without looking up, without pausing from shoveling cereal into his mouth. _Sting, no._

But you expected this one. You knew where you would have to start.

_If you fell in love you’d have to confront being human. You’d have to realize that you weren’t just pretending,_ you think. _And to have a baby, well, you’d just be a sucker, like all the rest, to believe in something. Someone. A future. You can always get rid of me, push me away ‘for my own good’. But a baby? No, no._

You drop it after a few minutes, because if there’s one thing you’ve learned in the past three years it’s that pushing Rust is like pushing back against the tide, trying to convince the moon to change its rise and fall. More likely to kill you trying. That’s fine. 

But one day while he follows you around the grocery store, you turn around from the lettuce to see him smiling at a little girl, young, young girl, sitting in a shopping cart. He pushes out his lips, distorting his face. And she laughs. It’s easy. It’d be easy to miss it too, but you turned, and you saw it, and that was that. Rust smiles his easy, languid smile, the one that makes you think of skipping rocks, and you push the cart into the next aisle before he can catch himself being happy. _Now_ , you think, _go_ now.

You pull cereal from the wall. _You’re great with kids, you know that, right?_

He keeps his tone casual even though you’ve both instantly tensed up. _Not really._

He grabs the cart and pushes it to dairy while you’re pretending to compare two types of identical bran flakes. 

You speed walk to catch up. _Is that why you’re scared to have a baby? You think it won’t like you? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard._

_Drop it, Sting. I said no._

_You’re not the only one who has a say in this_ you say.

Rust chews the inside of his mouth for a moment, like he’s trying to decide if he’ll answer you. 

_No. You’re right. And I can’t give you what you want._

He turns away, leaving you alone with the cart, shivering a little in the frozen foods section. 

_The conversation is tabled, ostensibly because Rust finds himself embroiled in another murder case, and you watch him work, watch him try to block up the door to keep the bad men at bay. One night he’s on a stakeout with Marty and you’re not expecting him home until morning. You’re washing dishes, back to the door, when it bangs open and you hear him stumble across the threshold._

_Wasp?_ you call out, without turning.

_Get the bandages and the tweezers_ his voice is harsh and strained and you can feel your brow furrow as you dry your hands and come out. 

He’s bleeding. His denim shirt is drenched dark red and he’s pressing hard on his abdomen, ( _GWS lower left quadrant_ you think instinctively, reverting to the nurse training) sweating and swaying in the doorstep. 

_What the fuck?_

_Got shot_ he says as if he was telling you to grab some more beer at the store.

_No fucking shit - where are the keys? We’re going to the hospital._

_No_ his voice is stronger, but he coughs. _No Sting. I ain’t going back there. Last time was enough._ You know he hates them, the kindness and the sanitary bullshit. You shake your head.

_God, you fucking idiot. Lie down on the table_ he grimaces at you in relief and gratitude but you can see how much pain he’s in, and sprint to the bathroom. 

When you get back, he’s painfully hoisted himself onto the table, eyes closed, breathing heavy. _What the fuck happened? Where’s Marty?!? Don’t tell me he left you out there for dead--_

_I may have been doing some, uh, extracurricular scouting before I took this to Marty. Dealer I was meeting with smelled cop on me but I got out fine._

_You fucking moron_ you mutter as your rip his shirt off, bending to examine the entry wound. _Fine? This is fine? Ok. The bullet’s in there pretty good. You know that hospitals have morphine, right?_ He shakes his head aggressively and you flinch.

_What is it?_ Rust asks.

_What? Nothing. I’m just trying to figure out the best way to do this. Don’t say I didn’t warn you -_

_No_ he gasps, and grabs your forearm as you try to turn away to assess your tools. _What’s going on._

_This is really not the time, asshole._

_Do you-are you--_ he puts his hand over the bullet wound. You cringe at the new potential source of infection. _You’re not operating on me until you say._

_Fuck, Rust, this isn’t the time to pull your seer bullshit or whatever shit this is. I am taking this fucking bullet out of you and then we can talk. Here_ you say, grabbing an open bottle of vodka from the counter. He takes a sip and hands it back to you, but keeps his hand over the wound. You could out-stubborn each other all night, but you’re starting to worry about how much blood he’s lost. _Fine! Fine. Move your fucking hand. I’ll tell you, but you can’t say a word or get upset until I get this fucking bullet out of you._

_No promises._

You pour vodka into the wound and he yelps, grimaces, breathes hard. _I was cleaning the wound, you fucking baby. Promise me_ you say, holding the bottle poised for more.

Rust hesitates and you tip a few more drops in.

_Fine_ he cries. 

_Okay._ You pick up the sterilized tweezers. _Close your eyes._ You push them in, moving flesh and blood and pulp aside. _We’re going to have a baby._ Rust twitches under your hands, causing the tweezers to graze the skin. _I said don’t move._ Rust obeys you but you can see his eyes bulge.

_You’re pregnant?? ffff--but, we’ve been, been so careful._ He gasps as you go back in with the tweezers.

You grasp the bullet and start to ease it out. _No. I’m making an executive decision. You knew I wanted a baby. You can stay or you can go. I’m not leaving, Rust. You’re not either, really. You’re getting tested to make sure you don’t have something from all those needles, then we’re gonna start trying. I’m ovulating Monday._ With one final thrust you pull the bullet from him. Blood streams out and you slam some ripped cloth over the wound to pressure the blood into clotting. Maybe it’s a little harder than necessary, but he probably deserves it. _Do we have anything I could cauterize with..._ you muse. He looks worried. _Oh god you big baby you snap you already got shot._

_No_ he says slowly _not that._

You staunch the blood, sew him up. The stitches aren’t your strong suit, you used up about twenty hundred bananas practicing. A little Frankenstein pattern, zig-zag’s, pulled unevenly. But it does the job. It’ll scar, probably. But nothing worse.

_Ok. You can react now. Or whatever._

He tries to stand up and winces from the pain. You pull him up, carrying him from beneath his armpits.

_There’s no purpose to this. Just an impotent gesture of fury towards the futility of the universe_ he says, not looking at you.

_Doesn’t mean it’s not valid in terms of emotional desire though_ you say, and wait.

_So our repetition in the cycle of creation will fulfill something for you._

_Yes._

_This is new._

_It’s not_ you respond _you knew this. You pretend like it’s different, but it’s the same._

_I know you but you know me. You know who I am beneath the skin and you can’t have imagined that I could agree to this_ he takes a sip of the vodka _what is this what urgency what pressure. Is it an ultimatum? Is that what you’re saying?_

_Do you see me? Do you see my want?_ you demand, staring at him and praying your voice doesn’t crack and your self-composure doesn’t crack so that you can live to fight another day

_I don’t have children, but I’m a mother, Rust. I need to create that. Ultimatum is a term you’re using to make this an argument you don’t have to have._

_Maybe I knew you wanted kids but it’s not like we’ve discussed it_ he looks you in the eyes and sighs _Sting, I-_

_Pause. Stop. This isn’t a ‘you humor me and we have a discussion thing’, this isn’t a ‘I hear what you’re saying and we never talk about it again thing’. It’s a ‘this is it thing’. An ‘all or nothing thing’. We’re going to agree or we aren’t, we’re going to agree or we won’t sit at this table._ You sit down at the table and look at him, lying there. _It’s real and it means to me… it means everything. It means I can be myself. It means I have this part of life that isn’t, it’s not fucked up._ He raises an eyebrow, takes a sip. _Not that you’re fucked up. Well, you are In a good way. It’s… a way for me to do better. To make things better. You get to bust people. I want this. I need this._ You lean back in your chair, wait.

He rubs the lines on his forehead, dragging already drying blood there in some sort of parody of war paint. _There’s not enough worth saving here to start anew. I… We can’t be responsible for an entirely distinct individual coming here and being subjected to the horror that is our wor-_

_I’m doing it to keep me from leaving the world when you do. I won’t be able to give up on life. I can’t let myself be all about you._

He pulls himself up from the table, and you restrain yourself from helping him. He stands alone. _I’m going to ruin it. The baby. I’m going to ruin him or her and I know I can ruin myself, throw myself off cliffs and fail and fail as I’m so used to doing, as humanity proves itself to do to the last syllable of recorded time. I don’t mind if it’s me. In the grand scheme, I’m the speck of dust on the pawn of the chessboard. And you, you are so strong. You don’t even know how strong you are. You’re like this, impossible thing, you are. An alloy of iron, with carbon. So simple, steel. So unbelievably strong. I, I don’t worry about you. But a baby. I’m not a father, Sting. I don’t… I’m not ‘family’. We work. We fit, as well as two people can fit. But a father? Even holding a baby too tightly, or not tightly enough, is this irrevocable thing. Everything. Everything matters to them and around them and about them. I’m going to break that._

_They have classes for shit like that. Maybe this will be good for you you say get you out of your comfort zone._ He snorts, the only way Rust really laughs, and you crinkle your nose at him.

_Don’t let me fuck it up_ he says, finally.

_How is that different than everything else we do_ you say, a knot untying in your chest.

_It’s not._ He walks six inches from you and drops his head so your foreheads meet.

One morning, you go to the store before he wakes up, the one on the corner that gets held up about three times a month, but you’ve figured out the schedules, so it’s not a problem anymore. You get bread, and some fruit, and hesitate for a few minutes over the milk case before choosing two percent. The plastic bag that you get at the counter has a drawing, a distorted drawing that you think might be the Virgin Mary but also sort of looks like the sun rising over an ocean if you squint in the right way.

He’s panicked when you get back to the room. Not quite pacing level, but he’s up, making coffee, and you see his head perk up when he hears the door open, his shoulders lose some of their tension with his back to you.

_I’m back_ you say needlessly. You drop the bag on the counter next to him.

Without looking up, he reaches over and starts pulling things out. _An orange_ he says skeptically, like no one’s ever eaten an orange before voluntarily, and he can’t imagine why anyone would.

_We need to talk_ you say, ignoring him. He raises the milk carton and looks at it and places it in the refrigerator. _It’s early, but…_

He chokes on the coffee that’s replaced heroin in his addictive personality. _That was fast._

_Apparently we’re very fertile._

_We would be_ he mutters.

_So I’ve made an appointment for an ultrasound_ you continue _and to get the medicine I have to take._

_They’re gonna judge us_ he frowns _those doctors._

_Yep_ you agree. _It’s gonna be hard. And then we’re gonna have a baby. And it’s gonna be impossible._

He sighs and starts unloading again. _What do you need from me?_

_Right now? To fuck me._ He looks up sharply and you grin, the tips of your teeth together in an unnatural underbite. _Apparently being pregnant makes you want it more, at least for a while._ It wouldn’t happen that soon, but you want him anyways, and the way you said it, it’s not a lie.

_Can we, I mean, it won’t--_

_It won’t hurt the baby, no, Rust._ You walk next to him and run your fingertips down the length of his face. _You won’t hurt the baby._

He closes his eyes and leans into your touch. You let your fingertips travel to his lips, into his mouth. He obediently sucks, nips at them. You let out a satisfied moan and press up against his side, gripping his mouth harder. _God, Sting,_ he licks his lips, your fingers _you feel like warm, coarse sand._

You take your wet fingers out to rub at the earlobe farther from you, unwilling to move your chin from the crook of his shoulder. _You’ll get used to it_ you say, hot breath in his ear.

_I am comfortable in the fire and the smoke and the smell of flesh being branded and the feel of glass on my skin._ He turns to cup your chin in his hand. Your body cries out from the sudden separation and you close your eyes, lean into it. _A sharp, targeted sting._

_And cold metal and hard floor and hard people_ you finish for him. _Your comfort zone is devastation, and you laugh but it’s true--you’re never really comfortable when we’re safe, are you. In one way or another. So soft and fragile and warm will be difficult. But I have faith in you, Wasp. Of all people I have faith in you._ You gnaw at his neck and he looks up at the ceiling.

_Cheating_ he says, his voice cracking.

_Is it cheating if you want me to_ you ask, hot breath into his ear, hand slipping into his pants.

_Especially then._

_Surprise. I don’t care._ You go back to biting, brushing your eyelashes against his neck. More cheating.

_We’re going to need a house_ he says, resigned. _Or at least another room._

_Good thing neither of us spends any money._

Suddenly he turns and hoists your thighs up above his hips, so you’re looking down at him. You squeak. He raises an eyebrow. _You’re gonna have to get used to surprises, Momma._

When you wake up in The Morning, the hospital is quiet. It’s the first time you’ve gotten to examine the room actually, being in the heat of the moment yesterday and all. Too exhausted at the end of the ordeal to do anything but sleep. And you hadn’t been in a hospital bed since the night when Rust almost died. You don’t have the best impression of hospitals. There’s death and sterility and time, and it’s all under a layer of white that makes you feel like they’re trying to erase themselves. But in the morning, when everyone’s dying silently, without pain the sun comes through the window behind your head and you see Rust, walking back and forth, his hair even more unkempt and misplaced than usual. 

He’s carrying the baby and then you remember you had a baby. Baby girl Cohle. He’s talking quietly to her, trying not to wake you. Her hair looks like his, you think drowsily. Like it was glued on her head. _You’re gonna have to help me_ he whispers roughly to the tiny human in his arms _because I don’t know how to, to feed you or fight you or fight for you and the later two are what I do, mostly. Barely feed myself. And we’ve gotta take care of your momma. Because she’s gonna be our whole world. I’ll be there, yeah, but your momma is your rock. And my salvation. ‘She shall be as a city upon a hill’. Guess who the hill is, little one._

_Let me take a crack at that_ you say, amused. Rust turns and smiles at you, all the worry and fear of the last nine months, gone, at least for a moment. Then-- _Where's her crib_ you ask. Rust grimaces. _Did you steal her out of the maternity ward? Offuckingcourse you did._

_I wasn't gonna let her wake up without us_ he retorts _not on the beginning of all her nights_. The baby moves, and Rust forgets what he was saying, what inconsequential fight you were about to have. _You did good, Herbert._

_She needs a name, Wasp. Which should probably not be ‘Wasplette’._

Rust licks his lips and you want to do it all over again, all four miserable hours, five days, and nine months of it. _Why can’t we just name her Margaret?_

_Because that would be confusing and because our daughter is her own person, Rust._ You sigh, exaggerated. _I tried to bring this up before._

_Too much like tempting fate_ he says roughly _I'm not giving them the chance to know her before she's here_. In his arms, she sighs and he grins at you, a shit-eating grin that says _See? SEE?_

_We're not naming her Margaret_ you answer. He walks back and forth, making baby sounds. He's like a white noise machine. It's bizarre, watching him calm someone. Even a child someone.

The baby coughs and _Sophia_ you say. _Wisdom_ you say.

Rust doesn't answer at first. He continues staring down at your daughter ( _your_ daughter), moving, breathing. He inspects her as he would a suspect, examining her up and down and lifting an eyebrow. _The great and terrible Rust Cohle at a loss_ , you think. _Did you know_ he says brusquely _that there was a saint named Sophia-_

_-I’m sure there was-_

_-Whose three daughters, Faith, Hope, and Love, were martyred._ He looks at you expectantly, his tone in sharp contrast to the bouncing baby in his arms making snuffling noises.

_Well, I’ve got two responses to that, Rust_. You tuck your hair behind one ear. _First, it’s gonna be a while until we have to worry about any grandchildren, let alone their eventual martyrdom. Second, I don’t think any child of ours will be naming her children after canonical virtues. Come here._

He walked over, cradling the baby carefully. _You know, it doesn't look half bad on you,_ you say. He looks down, reflexively checking himself. _Dad._

_Don't even joke_ he says, eyes widening. He puts the baby down next to you and you curl your body around her like a crescent moon. Her tiny, insignificant, unsuspecting body clenches and relaxes. He sits down on the edge of the bed and you worry he's gonna fall off.

_Sophia Grace Cohle._


End file.
